Reviews WesternAnimation / Masters Of The Universe Revelation

Part 1 - Fails where She-Ra and the Princesses of Power succeeds

I would say I'm a casual fan of the Masters of the Universe franchise, I had fond memories of the 2002 reboot of He-Man, watched a few episodes of the 1983 reboot and liked them just the same along with having high praise for 2018's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power reboot that Dreamworks made.

This show much like the 2018 She-Ra reboot tried to be a deconstruction, albeit jumping on that horse much earlier, straight at the end in the first episode. While most of The Power of Grayskull wouldn't feel too out of place in an attempted sequel of the show, with Skeletor attempting to conquer Castle Greyskull, which actually was a truly epic battle that is the highlight of the show. Notice what I just said right there, that was the highlight, this fact alone does not bode well for the rest of the show.

See, the end on this confrontation basically kicks Adam out of the main character position and puts Teela in his place. Now focusing on a different character would not be too much of an issue, albeit Kevin Smith's lying that this will be a story about He-Man making it harder to swallow. But even without the lies, the consequences of the battle, one that has given the woman feelings of betrayal and grief has pushed Teela into a woman that is hard to watch. She's become a major jerk, and not an entertaining jerk, an obnoxious one that the audience has the bad luck to accept as the protagonist.

If one was to watch the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, one might be able to draw comparisons between Teela and Catra. However, Catra is not only more entertaining to watch with her amusingly snarky and magnificently cunning personality but she fits in a better position in her show than Teela does in this one, namely, as a villain. The show makes no bones about how her misery is heavily self-inflicted and the real key to happiness would be leaving the Horde, but her grudge against her former friend Adora prevents her from realising this.

Now, there's another character that while not as obnoxious as Teela, isn't really that strong of a character either named Andra. She is supposed to be the more optimistic foil to Teela with knack at engineering and...I've basically explored most of her character already. The minute Teela ends up with more companions, she's overshadowed by characters with more interesting personalities. She feels like a lesser version of Bow from She-Ra, who has a more solid place in the cast, The Heart that keeps the glue between himself, Adora and Glimmer together despite the clashes between Adora and Glimmer.

As for the rest of the cast, with the exception of King Randor who does not appear past the first episode, they are what gives the show some redeeming quality. Seeing how both heroes and villains are affected from the fallout of the Battle for Greyskull. Unfortunately, Teela still has the spotlight, which means you have to bear her unbearable personality to get to these parts. It's a shame really...